My invention relates to a device for rapidly and reliably feeding solid balls, pellets and the like one by one from a bulk supply through an outlet.
There are numerous instances in which solid articles, such as balls or pellets or the like must be fed serially through an opening from a bulk supply of the articles. Moreover, this operation must be performed at high rates of speed and with a high degree of reliability. One such instance is in the microballistic printer described in my copending application Ser. No. 39,372, filed May 15, 1979. In that application I describe a printer which directs a plurality of small balls about one millimeter in diameter in extremely rapid succession against a printing medium such as a ribbon overlying a sheet of paper. In the ball gun of the printer, which is movable about orthogonal axes for targeting, balls are successively introduced into a resilient breech which is slightly smaller in diameter than the balls and behind which air is maintained under pressure. The ball is fired by pushing it sufficiently far through the breech to snap it through to the barrel side and allow the pressurized air to expand into the barrel and propel the ball outwardly.
I have invented a sawtooth feeder with jam preventer for feeding solid articles one by one from a bulk supply through an opening. More specifically, my feeder is especially adapted for use with my microballistic printer disclosed in the copending application referred to hereinabove. In such an installation balls are fed serially from the bulk supply into a passage leading to the resilient breech. As a ball enters the passage a ball is dislodged from the breech. My feeder is capable of extremely high rates of operation up to approximately 2000 balls per second.